matthewreillyfandomcom-20200214-history
Elephant Seal
Elephant Seals (also called sea elephants) are large, ocean-going earless seals. Fictional History Early History A group of southern elephant seals took up residence in an underground cavern on the coast of Antarctica, which was formed when an earthquake collapsed a secret ice station building a prototype stealth fighter. Over the next 20 years however, the plutonium core powering the plane leached passive radiation, which gradually causing the seals to mutate, growing larger and becoming more aggressive, while the males also grew larger incisors. Ice Station When a pair of investigating divers from Wilkes Research Station dove down into the cave after one of their scientists struck metal with his drill, they were attacked by the elephant seals. A few hours later, Ben Austin led a larger team down into the cavern, where moments after Austin reported seeing the ship to the station above, the seals began attacking the divers. The panicking divers were unable to describe their assailants to their colleagues still in the station, and when the lone remaining Austin reported that he was the last one, he begged for them to seek help before he was finally killed by the seals. A few days later, one of the seals killed a killer whale, and left ragged marks along its body, so when it floated up to the pool deck in Wilkes, the gathered Marines and Sarah Hensleigh were convinced that something extrememely dangerous lurked in the waters. Soon a small team of Marines and Hensleigh managed to successfully dive down and emerge in the cavern without being attacked by the seals, believing that their silent gear had allowed them to slip by their unknown enemy. However, the seals were in their passive cycle during the day, and had not cared to attack. Meanwhile, the bull elephant seal was swimming near the Wilkes diving pool when Lieutenant Shane Schofield's body was shoved into the water by Snake in an attempt to get rid of his body. The seal lifted Schofield out of the water and sniffed at him to see if he was alive (since the freezing cold water had resuscitated him) and decided to eat him. Before it could, however, James Renshaw appeared and shouted at it, causing the seal to slip back into the pool. Renshaw later showed Schofield footage of the incident, and determined that the creature was an elephant seal of a kind he had never seen before. Several hours later, the SAS Brigadier-General Trevor Barnaby sent his own team down into the cavern. Though they emerged in the cavern and began firing upon the Marines inside, they were unexpectedly attacked by the seals, who were now aggressive since it was night. The seals slaughtered the entire SAS team, and the Marines took cover in a fissure as the seals feasted in the cavern. A short time later, Gant managed to get in contact with Schofield, and they both shared their stories regarding the seals. Soon afterwards, Gant was chased by Montana, whom she had realised was an ICG agent after seeing him kill Santa Cruz. She emerged into the cavern, and was spotted by the bull, which began charging towards her. Montana, who had not noticed the seal, cornered Gant back at the fissure before he realised the threat. The seal crushed Montana up against the cavern wall and impaled him on one of its tusks, before starting to feed on the still-alive Marine traitor. When Schofield, Renshaw and Kirsty Hensleigh needed to escape Wilkes, Schofield decided they had no option but to go down to the cavern, hoping that the Marines' silent diving gear had kept the elephant seals from noticing his team earlier. Unfortunately his hopes were dashed as the seals attacked, and found himself confronted by the bull. As the much faster fur seal Wendy helped Kirsty to the surface and Renshaw made it out on his own, Schofield became stuck on the bull's tusk by virtue of his body armour. Schofield managed to pry himself off and set off a nitrogen grenade in the bull's mouth, which upon detonation instantly killed the bull elephant seal. The females of the group would try to call out to the bull as the cavern began collapsing, and the remaining seals were possibly wiped out when a nuke struck Wilkes. A few days later in Pearl Harbour, Schofield shared with Renshaw his realisation that the mutated elephant seals were on a passive/aggressive cycle, which Renshaw remarked he'd remember if he ever encountered such creatures again. Description The mutant elephant seals are diurnal, so they were only aggressive to the diving teams that went down at night, they were also larger than regular Elephant Seals and the males were known to have larger tusks than normal, large enough, in fact, to kill a Killer Whale. Trivia *The mutated elephant seals are diurnally passive during the day, but more agressive at night. Category:Creatures Category:Animals Category:Ice Station